Take My Hand, Please

Today’s topic? Boys with fingernail polish.

First off, if you call it “fingernail paint”, boy or girl, you’ll get made fun of. I found that out. See, I was at play practice tonight (go figure),

Come to the play here @ DSU! It’s November 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. It starts at 8:00 pm @ the Dakota Prairie Playhouse (DPP). If you don’t know where this is, and want to come see me act in two (yes, one plus one) plays, then send me an email.
WARNING: Some of the skits contain adult language, so bear this in mind.

, and Heather and Jamie were doing nails. Jamie says, “You want me to do YOUR nails?” After some consideration, I said okay. She did my right hand in dark red with a silver thumb, and the opposite colour scheme on the other hand. Now, my excuse to my friends is that it was for the play. In fact, it kinda is. We decided that for one of my plays, my character is going to be a punk/goth kid and might wear nail polish. I’m thinking red and blue for now. I can’t find anyone with black.

So, the issue is what’s wrong with guys wearing nail polish?

Society does nasty things to people. It makes people say “THAT’S not right” when they see a boy with black nail polish. Tattoos, piercings, nail polish. These things are “tools” of the goth. Really gothic people have a large assortment of these things. But why? It’s because society says that “THAT’S not right” and that’s what the goth counter-culture is about : being not right.

How did nail polish get into this. I’m not sure how I feel about tattoos and piercings. Both are permanent changes to your body. A reactionary would say that God gave you your body, and you have no right to change it beyond his vision. This is too … reactionary for me. But I’m not sure that fashion falls into the realm of burning ink into your flesh or poking metal/plastic pieces into it.

Nail polish is different. It’s simply decoration, like makeup or hair colour, or clothing, even. People of different background decorate themselves a different way. I’m not a big fan of corsets, myself, but some people wear them. Good for them, I say. I like to be different at some things.

I’m not into clothes. I, early on, learned to hate popular kids. I do, truly. And popular kids care about how they look – they dress in the highest fashions, with the highest regard for price tag. Not me. To deal with this, I could care less where I bought my clothing. Most of it is from rummage sales, and no one cares. And if they DO care, then they’re a “popular kid” and I hate them.

I did dye my hair. I enjoyed the change. I change my desktop background often – severely often. I change my windows theme less often. I love change, being different (part of that anti-main stream thing) and so I changed my hair. It was work, though. And many people didn’t like it. Some of my friends weren’t very impressed. Some people liked it. In either case, it was the reaction that I didn’t like. Why react to me differently? I changed my hair, not my religion. Nothing big.

I don’t do makeup – it’s part of that same anti – mainstream thing. Though, a guy wearing make up would make me counter-culture, which is what I want. Hmm, maybe something to consider.

Nail polish : issue. I’ve talked to one guy who has no problem with it. I’ve talked with one guy who has deep problems with it. I’ve talked to a girl who has no problem with it. I’ve talked to a girl who has problems with it. Let’s explore this.

Problems with this : maybe these people are scared. Maybe they had oppressive upbringings. Maybe they’re scared to be individuals, because they don’t want to be the ones on the outside. I was on the outside, and I’m not going in.
Societal norms are good for creating a sense of home. If you’re young, and society says “Be whatever you dream” then where do you start? You become overwhelmed – or you become fabricated. You copy your parents. People get stuck into a certain mode – a certain mold – and they can’t/won’t break free.

Why? Is it fear? Fear plays a large part in our lives – it makes us do many stupid, crazy things. So does lack of fear, for that matter. We call one group cowards and the other hell-raisers. Is that right? Is it right to say that society should dictate our personal feelings. Sure, culture should influence, but should it set in stone? Culture’s been wrong before, and will be wrong again, and may be wrong now.

I don’t know – maybe I’m thinking too much about this. All this over nail polish. I’m wearing some right now. What do you think about that? Does it make me weird or gay? Does it make me cool and counter-culture? Or does it not even matter?